Iranian Commander Warns U.S. Against Attacking Syria

An attack on Syria will spread the "spirit of jihad" among Muslims, warns commander in the Revolutionary Guards.

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Elad Benari, 04/09/13 03:13

Syrian troops take position in a heavily dama

AFP photo

A senior Iranian military commander warned the United States on Tuesday against military intervention in Syria, saying that such an action will further incite anti-American sentiments among Muslims worldwide.

“We are on the threshold of a strategic turning point regarding the fate of this region and more generally [the future of] the Muslim world,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ second-in-command, Brigadier General Hossein Salami, said on Tuesday. His remarks were carried by PressTV.

“What we are witnessing now is the outcome of the repeated losses that the U.S. and its Western and regional allies have incurred…over the past three decades,” he added.

Salami noted that the United States, Israel and their regional allies have failed to reach their long-term objectives in the Middle East despite utilization of all their strategies.

“These defeats have led the United States to try to penetrate in the center of gravity of the [anti-Israeli] Islamic resistance front, which is Syria,” he claimed.

He said that war on Syria will be “a very dangerous game”, stressing that there is no military solution to the Syrian conflict and that Israel must reconsider its security strategies.

Salami warned that an attack on Syria would spread the "spirit of jihad" among Muslims.

The comments came one day after an Iranian lawmaker warnedthat a U.S.-led military strike on Syria could backfire on the entire region, particularly against American and Israeli interests.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of the Iranian parliamentary committee for national security and foreign policy, said that “self-restraint exercised by U.S. President Barack Obama, this American approach, serves America's interest on the one hand and the Zionist entity's on the other because any political miscalculation in this regard could negatively backfire on the situation of the whole region.”